Another successful season of Get Lit! is behind us! Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2011 Festival—we hope you enjoyed the authors and were inspired for your own writing and reading. Take a look at some highlights of this year's festival, Big Read, and educational outreach programs.
The Big Read
The community’s response to this year’s NEA Big Read was overwhelming. Nearly 5,000 people attended 38 events, which were focused on the book The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and included discussion with the author, film screenings, lectures, art exhibits, and other events. Eastern Washington University’s theater department produced a dramatic adaptation of the book as the school’s winter play, which was met with praise from the audiences. The Big Read culminated in An Evening with Tim O’Brien at the Bing Crosby Theater, a headlining event at the Get Lit! Festival.
Get Lit! 2011 Festival
Over the course of five brimming days, Spokane was a hub for 40 well-respected authors at more than 50 events. Over 3,000 people participated in the Get Lit! Festival’s author readings, community events, workshops, panel discussions, poetry slams, and more. As always, it was a wonderful time for authors to meet each other and their readers, as well as for the community to interact with authors, discover new favorites, get ideas for their own writing, and express their love for reading. And once again, responses were positive all around. One attendee said, “This is such a wonderful gift for the community—we look forward to this every year.” Another exclaimed, “I’m so delighted that Spokane has a festival of this magnitude. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
Headliners Tim O’Brien and Brian Turner engaged their audience of 450—including more than 250 high school and college students—with great rapport and poignant honesty. One audience member said the best part of the event was “Tim O’Brien’s authenticity, descriptions of his own journey, and especially his emphasis on being a whole man with emotions and doubts.” The audience was so involved in the discussion that people wanted to stay and keep the conversation going beyond the time allotted for questions.
Sam Kean, author of The Disappearing Spoon, was another festival favorite. Audiences were excited by the unique focus on science and enchanted by his humor and stage presence. Poet Matthew Dickman was “insightful, genuine, hilarious and provided fascinating insight into the world of poetry” as he shared his poetry and personal experiences in a charming, forthcoming manner. Heather Gold’s performance piece, “Cookie,” was very popular, and some remarked that it was the best event they had ever been to in Spokane (and it was free!). Unsurprisingly, the audience loved Ani DiFranco’s concert, and reacted with particular enthusiasm when she read a couple poems.
The 25 festival workshops and panels brought a diversity of topics and perspectives from numerous writers and editors. Participants found they left with fresh ideas for their writing, techniques to bring back to their classrooms, or simply new information and thoughts to ponder.
The poetry slams were a great hit. The winner of the college slam, Kurt Olson, performed his piece at the Ani DiFranco concert, as did Harley Bates, who won the teen slam. Bates had never won or performed anything before, but in front of over 650 people at the concert, she excelled. Ben Read, who took first place in the youth slam, greatly impressed author Louise Borden, at whose reading Read presented his winning piece.
Educational Outreach Programs
Writers-in-Residence sent Sarah Conover, Susan Virnig, Diana McLean, and Daniel Harrington into participating schools: Lidgerwood Elementary, Barker High, Havermale High, RiverCity Leadership Academy, and Ness Elementary. During a total of 200 hours of classroom time, these writers connected with about 350 students. Here are just a couple of the powerful stories from their experiences:
A boy with special needs at Ness Elementary school wasn’t interested in poetry for the first eight weeks of the Writers-in-Residence placement. Then the ninth week, Susan Virnig brought in art pieces to spur ekphrastic writing—combining writing and art—and suddenly poetry came to life for him. He proceeded to write eight poems in a single week.
Nilam is a Nepalese student at Lidgerwood Elementary. At the beginning of the year, she wrote only very small amounts, and her English vocabulary was very limited. She was hesitant to try the creative writing assignments, and her teacher simply asked her to brainstorm English words instead of completing entire assignments. By the end of the Writers-in-Residence placement, Nilam was writing full pages and choosing to do the same assignment as the class rather than a simpler version, and her writing was much easier to understand. (You can read one of her poems below.)
Author's Tour brought authors to nearly 3,000 students at 13 different schools, reaching areas as far as Okanogan, Manson, and Coeur D'Alene. One Reardan Elementary School teacher said: “I was very pleased that our fourth grade students were able to receive guidance from a published author while creating their own narrative. I think this experience validates the importance of writing.”
Poetry Out Loud: Get Lit! continued to coordinate the Spokane region’s Poetry Out Loud competitions and this year an estimate of 600 high school students participated. Eleven finalists competed at the regional competition, and winner Langston Ward of Mead High School went on to win honorable mention at the state level. Brianna Ellis from Okanogan High School said: “It was very humbling to get to recite poems from such great authors. You get turned on to poetry from the get go. I have loved everything about this experience.”
The 2012 Get Lit! Festival
Next year, the festival theme will be “Capturing the World.” This theme will address how writers capture the world on the page and open up the discussion to writing across the globe. Plus, we will be spotlighting crime-fiction! This will be our last e-newsletter until the fall. But check our website later for information on the 2012 authors and events!
Poems in sidebar:
Jacob Olsen: Nature
Nature is awesome
Because nature is outside
And outside is cool
Nilam Karki: Coming to Spokane
I’m coming with my family. My brother is scared to airplane fly and I’m scared too. My little sister is scared too. My sister is crying. I flew from Nepal to Spokane. I fly and it was long so I watched the movie. This is a surprise to me.
